Page 32 of Love Out Loud

I run my thumb back and forth over her knuckles. Her eyes track the movement for a second before she closes her eyes. She looks pained. Heavy. Older, suddenly.

“What’s going on here?” I ask, not changing the rhythm of my thumb tracing the back of her hand.

“I don’t know. What if I’m not any good at this?”

“The audiobook? Lark, you’re going to be amazing. Noah, Silas, and Jessica are already obsessed with you. Or were you not at the same lunch I was at yesterday?”

She huffs, then opens her eyes and pins me with a serious gaze. I know what’s coming before she even says it.

“Jessica was obsessed with one of us yesterday. I don’t think it was me.”

“I’m not sleeping with her. I told you that.”

Her lips form a thin line, and she ticks an eyebrow toward the sky. “It wouldn’t bother me if you were. You’re allowed to have women in your life. I just want to know before I get knee-deep in this project.”

I squeeze her hands. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She softens at that. “I know. I’m…” She trails off and looks upward to the sky again. “I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m sad, Lennon. I’m out of my depth, and I miss my kid.”

I stand and motion for her to scoot over. There’s barely enough room on the armchair for both of us, so I pull her halfway into my lap and wrap my arms around her. She rests her head on my shoulder and sighs. For a moment, I think she might start crying, but she doesn’t. Maybe she’s all out of tears for now.

I steal a kiss on top of her head. It’s probably wildly inappropriate, but I can’t help myself. She feels so good in my arms. Satisfying, like the piece to a jigsaw puzzle I thought had been missing and suddenly found under a couch cushion.

“You’re a good mom,” I say into her hair. “Devin is a testament to that. She’s the best kid, and she feels safe to explore the world because you made sure she’s been safe her whole life.”

“Shit.” Lark sniffles. “I had literally just stopped crying, you asshole.”

She doesn’t mean it. It’s just how she is—deflecting with a joke or a taunt. I’m glad she’s back at it. It feels much more normal than the deep introspection.

I squeeze her tighter, not quite ready to tease her back yet. “You carried her for eighteen years. Let me carry you for a few weeks. Stay here, be as sad as you want. We’ll do some fun stuff, drink some good wine, you’ll be brave and try something new. We’ll be together. It’ll be great.”

She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and shifts so she’s sitting sideways on the armchair, her legs spread over my lap and her head still on my shoulder. “Okay.”

And then, even though I know it might be a death sentence given the words on repeat throughout my dreams last night, I ask, “Do you want to practice before you start recording tomorrow?”

She chuckles, the sound vibrating against and through me, all the way to the tips of my toes. “You mean run lines like we used to do in high school?”

Yep. This is a terrible idea, but like toothpaste out of the tube, there’s no going back now. I’d do this and a lot more for her, just to hear that laugh again. “Something like that.”

“You think you could help?” she asks skeptically.

I scoff, offended. “I’ve engineered, like, hundreds of these things. Yes, I think I can help.”

She tips her face up to mine. We are so close together that I can feel her warm breath on my skin. It smells of tannins and lemon.

“My bad.” She nestles her head into the space between my neck and shoulder. “I’d be grateful for the help. Thank you.”

We sit there in silence for a long while before I ask, “Why did you come out here? Just to think?”

“I wanted to watch the sunrise.”

I hum as I roll my lips together and bite them to hide a snicker. She must sense it, though, because she looks up at me again.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I insist. I nod in the direction she’s been facing. “That’s west.”

She doesn’t move. “Oh.”

And then, because I can’t help myself, I say, “Out here, we watch the sun set mostly.”

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, each note a short staccato. She’s annoyed with herself, probably, but I can sense the humor coursing through her, too.

“Because it’s the West Coast,” I add through a chuckle.

She smacks my arm. “I got it, you dick.”

“I think you’re confusing me with your ex-husband.”

She barks out a laugh. Her head pops off my shoulder, and she looks at me, incredulous. “Lennon Samuel Hollis. Stop.”

I roll my eyes dramatically. “Okay, okay.”

Her body shakes with restrained laughter as she rests her head back on my shoulder. I smile out over her at the brightening sky and the buildings beyond the balcony. Eventually, she settles, and she lets me hold her in a comfortable silence as the sky goes from navy to pink to a bright royal blue. I watch as the sun starts weaving its way through her hair, twisting it into gold fibers that tickle my cheek in the morning breeze.

Once the sun has broken over the top of my building, she unfurls herself and stretches her neck one way, then the other. “I don’t know,” she says on a breath, her voice airy and content. “This might be the West Coast, but that was the best sunrise I’ve seen in a while.”

She stands and takes both our empty mugs with her inside, but I linger on the balcony for another few minutes wishing I could hold her for a little longer.